


Escape

by friendofhayley



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV) Fusion, Crack Treated Seriously, Cruise Ships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 01:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15304497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendofhayley/pseuds/friendofhayley
Summary: A Brooklyn Nine-Nine AU where Detectives Styles and Tomlinson have to come up with a plan to catch the Sony Crusader - Shawn Mendes.  Featuring help from Captain Payne, his quirky assistant Niall, and the Zayn Malik.





	Escape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [underthesunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/underthesunlight/gifts).



> I have a few people to thank:
> 
> First of all, thank you so much to the mods of this exchange who were generous to give me extension after extension while life was hitting me with stressful roadblocks.
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful beta, qwince, who accepted a month of radio silence before I bombarded her with my finished fic. You are an amazing beta and cheerleader!!
> 
> And last but not least, my wonderful girlfriend Ellen who has been slowly reading through my fanfics even though she doesn't know who's who in One Direction. Thank you for increasing my confidence with your lovely words, my lovely gal.
> 
> I hope you like this, thelouistiti! We really needed a B99 AU.

“ _It’s a gay paradise, put up a parking lot,_ ” Louis sings to himself as he swings the gate open to the precinct floor. 

He swings his bag filled with the greasiest treasures Burger King offers behind him. Everything feels as it should, his desk smells as greasy as it always does, his chair molding perfectly to his ass. It would be perfect if there weren’t two eyes glaring a hole into his head.

Thankfully, one of Louis’ best features as the best detective at the Nine-Nine is knowing exactly how to annoy people. That is how he has the best track record of interrogating perps without violence, after all. 

It only takes one minute of chewing his Whopper with his mouth open for the man across him to snap.

“How can you eat that crap, don’t you know it’s full of chemicals?! Also, I can practically hear the mold growing in that sandwich you stuck in the drawer, I checked after you left yesterday and it is still there. And it’s ‘they paved paradise’ not ‘a gay paradise!’”

Louis grins with his mouth open, relishing the grimace he receives in return, “Wow, didn’t know you cared, Styles. Oh wait, I did because you never stop talking in your stupidly slow voice.”

Harry seethes, his eyes reduced to slits, “We’ll see who has a stupidly slow voice once I crush you after I solve this case, Tomlinson. Must I remind you that we’re tied for the number of cases we’ve solved?”

At that, Harry puts his head back down, viciously slashing through his paperwork. Louis really doesn’t know where he could have gotten a fountain pen fashioned with a faux aquarium inside, but the fake coral is _definitely_ not cool. What a nerd.

“ _Must I remind you?_ God, he’s such a prick.” Louis impersonates Harry in the break room, while Niall taps away at his phone. 

“Mmmhmm.” Niall answers.

“Like, when’s the last time he’s gotten that stick out of his ass and had a good fucking?” Louis covertly watches Harry eat a cheese-stick tongue first through the blinds.

“I could guess it’s the same amount of time since you’ve gotten laid, Tommo.” Niall takes a sip of his coffee without looking away from his phone, “Bt-dubs, have you noticed this is the first time since Harry’s gotten here that you both are single? Might want to take that chance, mi amigo.”

“Huh?” Louis watches as Harry mistakenly tries to take a wet bite of his fountain pen instead of his snack before he registers what his friend said. A surprised burp rips out of Louis. “Psh. Wha? Psh. Huh?” 

“Oh, I started seeing this Ecuadorian guy. I guess his vernacular has rubbed off on me, among other things. Great in the sack, but I feel like he has a kink with the sound of my knees cracking. I swear if he says ‘mas rapido’ to me while I’m riding his dick one more time -”

“Oh my god!” Louis turns away from the window, “too much information, Horan. Anyway, I was talking about the other thing that you said. Why would you ever put the idea of having sex with Styles in my head?”

Niall finally looks up, “Listen, Tommo. I’m saying this because we’re friends and because I’m fucking awesome and like to give. Nobody obsesses over someone unless they want to kill ‘em or fuck ‘em, and you’re just a soft bumblebee who could never take somebody’s life.”

“What? I could totally kill someone!” Louis yelps just as the precinct captain passes through the break room door.

Their Captain stops in his tracks, “Detective Tomlinson, as your Captain I would ask you to refrain from yelling about yourself murdering someone in our workplace where your coworkers arrest people for a living.” He takes off his hat, “But as your friend, what’s wrong, mate?”

Louis shakes his head, Payne and he get along fine outside of work hours, but he can’t talk about this nonsense in front of him right now, “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Captain Payne nods and puts his hat back on, “Alright then, as your boss once again, I have to inform both of you that we have an important briefing in 5. Niall, you are, of course, invited out of courtesy.”

Louis tries to push whatever rubbish Niall was spewing out of his mind as the rest of the precinct settles down in the break room. Styles' tally for solved cases is still on the whiteboard, though it turns out Styles had finished his paperwork as they were completely tied again. Dammit.

“You all are probably wondering why I called this meeting all of a sudden,” Captain Payne starts. “Well I’m excited to announce that we have gotten a lead on the Sony Crusader,” the Captain pauses for a moment to click onto the next slide, revealing Louis’ arch-nemesis, “Shawn Mendes.”

Shawn Mendes was a crook who had started his thieving days with iPods until it grew into a television empire. The boy is only nineteen, yet he has 300 felonies under his belt and has worked for almost every mob in New York City due to his incredibly sticky fingers. He goes by so many aliases that the first time the 99 encountered him, they didn’t even know his real name.

Louis is already standing up, “What’s the lead? Who are you assigning to be on this case with me?”

“Patience, Tomlinson.” _Click_. “One of our informants sent a coded message that Mendes currently works as a lounge singer for Silversea Cruises. Our informant also let us know that the next cruise Mendes will be working for is for 21 nights and departs from Fort Lauderdale.”

Louis rubs his hands together, “Perfect! So we do a stake-out on the cruise, arrest Shawn Mendes, and then eat sliders for the rest of the month!”

Styles raises his hand, the brown-noser, “But, sir, what would be the point of having a mission on that cruise? You know, since we would be on international waters and thus wouldn’t have the jurisdiction to do anything that Detective Tomlinson just said.” 

“Quite accurate, Detective Styles, however in this instance Detective Tomlinson is in the right. Which is how this situation is so strange.” 

Louis rubs his chest, trying to recover from the sting of that barb. 

Captain Payne strokes his stubble, “It is quite known that cruises are safe havens for criminals, however, one of those men threw Shawn Mendes to us. In fact, the captain of the ship even offered to arrest him for us, but only if specific people from this precinct went on this mission.”

“I don’t buy this,” Zayn remarks from the back. Louis tries to get his attention, but he just walks up to a flustered Captain Payne like he’s on a catwalk, “This kid’s too smart to get himself into a situation where he would be served on a silver platter. I bet this is all his plan to get something from us.”

“Well, duh, he’s the Sony Crusader!” Louis butts in, mostly to help Captain Payne who had been too lost in Zayn’s eyes to give a response. Louis can understand, Zayn is very pretty and only his eyelashes can rival his own. “Do I have to remind you how many times this kid escaped our clutches?”

“He’s nineteen!” Styles counters.

“You’ve never met him, Harry.” Zayn turns to him now, his unbuttoned work shirt ethereally fluttering in the wind, his tattoos glistening, “He’s the devil, right, Tommo?”

Styles looks at him with consternation on his face. Louis winces, “Zayn may be saying this because Shawn Mendes pinched his ass last time we encountered him.”

“That Sony pipsqueak made me dress up as his wife and then called me Veronica in front of a mob boss!” Zayn glowers, “I’m gonna make that kid cry.”

“Wait, what?” Styles looks even more confused now, which is surprising. Louis wouldn’t have put it past him to read all the cases Louis has ever solved in order to one-up him about this horrible paperwork skills. 

“Zayn please don’t, he might be into that.” Louis sits on the table in front of Styles, “Basically, I caught Mendes, he told us he had a lead for the ringleader of the Irish mafia in Brooklyn in exchange for a lighter sentence. We went undercover, me as Johnny Thunderwave, Zayn as Veronica Spice, and then Mendes got away.”

Zayn nods, “He had everything prepared, from my wig to his code word with his accomplice. The kid’s a genius.”

Harry bites his lip, the color turning more red and full. Louis finds himself distracted as the other man darts his tongue out as he thinks, “But then what could his plan be to draw us in?”

“The answer to that is why I believe we, as a precinct, cannot turn away this information.” Captain Payne straightens up, “Detectives Malik, Tomlinson, Styles, Niall, and myself will be on this mission.”

“Wait, Niall? What would Shawn Mendes want with your assistant?” Louis asks what he bets everyone else is thinking.

As one they look at the window to watch as Niall somehow manages to punch himself in the eye while trying to polish the golf clubs he always brings to work.

“Oh no, Niall,” Zayn whispers.

**-  
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport  
10:00 am  
-**

The whole gang has decided on trying to blend in during the cruise in order to attempt to surprise Mendes. Louis almost doesn’t recognize his coworkers once he gets off the plane in Fort Lauderdale.

Everyone looks like a bunch of pre-hangover dads in Hawaii except for Styles.

(And Zayn, but to be honest, what’s new? Plus Louis and Zayn have been friends since school, so he’s practically immune now.)

Louis has never seen Styles outside of his work clothes that mainly consist of sweater vests and heavily starched white dress shirts complemented with heavily gelled hair. But this creature in front of him makes Louis choke on his tongue. 

It reminds him of the one time he saw Harry with long hair before he cut it. He looked like a beautiful mermaid.

The other man seems to have naturally voluminous hair with a subtle curl. Out of work Styles also seems to have a problem with buttons as only the bottom three buttons of his Hawaiian shirt are buttoned, leaving his many tattoos bare. Especially since the shirt is completely see-through. 

Wait, fuck, what the fuck was he thinking? He didn’t like Styles. He was an annoying prick who told bad stories. Louis couldn’t even count the number of times his coworker started a story that ended in a completely unimpressive way. And most importantly, he wasn’t going to let Niall win this game of wiles. 

Louis had proven time and time again his position as the best detective of the Nine-Nine. If he’s ever had a crush on Styles, he would have known by now. 

At that thought, Styles moves closer to him, “Oh! Louis, I was thinking of a way we could finally settle who is the best detective on the squad since we’re tied. Also, I was thinking of calling each other by each other’s last names will definitely give us away to Shawn Mendes.” 

Louis watches bleary-eyed as the lips start moving. God, they’re so plush. Wait, focus.

“Whoever arrests Shawn Mendes first gets the title of best detective of the Nine-Nine?” 

“Deal,” Louis says about two seconds too late.

Styles brightens, “Alright, let’s shake on it!”

Louis nods and spits in his hand - 

“Oh my god, no, gross, no!” Styles yelps, squeezing his eyes shut as if he’s trying rewind his life. 

Louis watches, wickedly amused as Styles takes a few breaths before steeling himself, “Get ready to go down, Tomlinson. Because there’s only going to be one dead body left on this ship, and it’s gonna be you.”

He watches as Styles walks away fiercely, before squealing as Louis pretends to touch him with his slobber-filled hand. Damn, that boy freaky.

(“Ten bucks that they start shagging by the time we get back to New York.” Zayn chimes in, after the whole squad had seen the disaster that had just occurred.

“Twenty that they have angry sex a week in,” Niall quips, “I swiped Payno’s assignments and they’re sharing a room.”

Zayn clicks his tongue piercing, “Oh damn.”)

**-  
The halls of the Silver Whisper  
3:00 pm  
-**

“I can’t believe they couldn’t afford to get a single room for all of us,” Styles huffs as they walk down to their cabin, “I mean, I completely understand why Captain Payne deserves one, but they could have thrown us a bone!” 

Louis rolls his eyes at the way Styles talks about Payne even outside of the precinct. The boy really knows how to suck up. The only thing Louis really knows is that he’s happy he’s not living with Niall. 

The two had just passed Zayn carrying all of Niall’s bag with the other lad snapchatting the whole thing. 

Styles triple checks their ticket with the room number before finally opening the door, “Oh, fuck no.”

Louis tries to peer over Styles' large frame to see what’s wrong, “My arms are literally dying right now, what’s wrong?”

The other man turns around with a grim look in his eyes, “They only gave us one bed.”

**-  
RM 3002  
10:00 pm  
-**

“So I missed the briefing meeting, because hello boring,” Niall taps away at his phone on the bed, “Who is this Shawn Mendes guy? Is he cute? He gay?”

“He’s a kid,” Zayn glowers with a toothbrush in his mouth, “and a menace. You’re a civilian, Niall, stay out of this. We still don’t know what the captain of this ship wants with you.”

“Whatever, you call me a kid all the time. I’m younger than all of you anyway. But what did he do?” Niall finally puts his phone down, “and most importantly...is he gay?”

“He steals electronics, only Sony products and we’re not sure why. But when he’s not doing his solo act, he works with mob bosses and helps them steal things they couldn’t do with their own people. He’s dangerous.”

“Oh damn, can he hook me up? I need the newest iPhone but I’m poor.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, “I told you he only steals Sony products. So he could maybe get you a TV and a Walkman but that’s it.”

He can feel Niall staring at him, waiting. 

Zayn sighs, “All I know is he likes men because he’s got a crush on me. Keeps writing songs about me, it’s weird. He could be bisexual for all I know or care. Happy?”

“Oh, very.”

**-  
The deck of the Silver Whisper  
-**

Their first act of staking out the area is going to the happy hour right before Shawn Mendes’ first show on the cruise. 

Louis catches his roommate and bane of existence at the bar after catching up with Payne, “Styles, are you really going to be drinking on the job?”

Styles snorts, “Aren’t we supposed to be assimilated with all the other guests? Plus all the drinks are complimentary.” The tall boy flutters his eyes at the barkeep, “One sex on the beach, please.”

Louis pushes down an uneasy feeling that flutters in his chest as the bartender stares his roommate up and down appreciatively, “And I’ll have one Adios Motherfucker.”

“You really don’t have to try to monitor me, Louis, I don’t plan on sleeping on the job,” Harry smirks as he plays with his straw, tongue first of course, “and even if I did, I would still be able to destroy you at our little game,” before hollowing his cheeks for his first sip. 

Louis may be developing asthma late in his twenties, “Oh, kitty’s got claws -”

Niall pushes past Louis, practically punching him in the stomach, “Please stop being gross with your weird flirting. Two Jagerbombs, please and thank you.”

Zayn appears out of nowhere behind Louis, “Plus the doors are opening. Prepared to see your arch-nemesis, Tomlinson?”

**-  
-**

Louis knows that if one glanced at the tall, lanky white boy playing the piano in the all-ages lounge, one would just think he was an innocent teen lucky enough to get a gig singing on an expensive cruise ship. But if one looked harder, a bystander would have been able to see the sparkle of deception in his eyes, just as Louis did.

“ _Zayn, Zaynie, Zaynie-poo  
I saw you through some two-way glass  
And all you did was look my way  
He’s the wife I need  
And my heart started to race  
And my hands started to shake, yeah  
Zayn, Zaynie, Zaynie-poo_.”

Zayn starts to shake with rage next to Louis, a growl growing in his chest.

Styles gasps beside him, before whispering urgently, “How could he have known we were here already?”

Mendes stops his tinkering and leans forward, “Hello, my name is Victor Cornflakes and welcome to my humble abode. I like to start off my set every night with the first song I ever wrote with passion in my heart.”

The kid emphasizes his Canadian accent, probably to arouse some sympathy from the audience, which almost works with Louis as well. Sure, Canada has authentic maple syrup but at what price? Louis shudders at the thought of growing up somewhere where hockey could be considered cooler than soccer.

Styles lets out a relieved breath and motions for the rest of the squad to huddle as Mendes continues his monologue, “Phew. For a moment I thought our cover was blown.”

Louis rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know how Styles managed to physically say ‘phew’ out loud, but it is definitely not endearing. 

Poor Payne nods fiercely, the corks on his Australian hat flying widely as Styles continues, “Let’s just continue trying to lie low for the rest of today -”

“Play Wonderwall!” Niall has wrapped his brochure into a tube and starts yelling into it, “Hey, white boy, play Wonderwall!”

“You’re literally the whitest boy I know!” Zayn hisses quietly as the rest of the Nine-Nine tries to get Niall’s attention, “Your ass has literally blinded me three times already today!”

If nothing else has shown Louis that Niall isn’t human, watching him not baulk from Zayn’s death stare definitely does it. Louis feels his blood freeze as the spotlight falls on them.

“And that’s it for the music hour!” Mendes hastily walks off the stage, causing Louis to curse. They had been so close, who knows how long it would be before he could get the Sony Crusader this close again.

Something taps Louis’ shoulder. The detective turns around to come face to face with his arch-nemesis.

“Dude! It’s been forever!” Louis’ arch-nemesis gives him a hug. Louis does not appreciate having to go on his tiptoes to accept it, but he’s too shocked to react any other way.

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Mendes interrupts Styles’ lecture to Niall’s unhearing ears, “I knew all of you were on the ship before your cute friend spoke up.” The criminal winks and finger guns at Niall, “and it wasn’t just because your same cute friend tweeted at me.”

Louis turned, “Niall?! Really?”

By this time Styles has already pulled his phone from his fanny-pack, “Oh my god, he really did. ‘Love when the police pay for my vacay so I can ask @ShawnMendes if he can be my sugar father #freewalkman’”

Mendes smiles sweetly and swings an arm around Louis, “But aside from that sweet offer, I’ve been waiting for you to finally appear and save me, Tommo.”

Louis sputters, “And why the _fuck_ would I ever do that?” He turns to Payne, who just responds with a baffled face.

“Let’s bring this sixsome to my suite and I’ll break it down for you,” Mendes says as he herds them towards a deserted hallway leading off the music lounge. 

He flashily procures a keycard from his pants pocket, only to be knocked back by a bloodthirsty Zayn, “Give us one reason why we should trust you.”

“Listen Zaynie,” Mendes pauses as Zayn shook him again, “Z, I know you feel threatened from your change in position in my life, and I totally get that. Who wouldn’t want to hit it and not quit it with the Sony Crusader? But we’ll always have those good memories we shared together.”

Mendes lays a soft hand on the one around his neck.

“What good memories?” Zayn asked through gritted teeth, “The time when you handed me a push-up bra with no explanation or the time you invented a song that still haunts my dreams?”

“Z, Z, Z,” Niall steps up, beside the unhappy couple, “That is both an example of how bored I am of this stand-up _and_ a consolation to my hottest friend -”

“We’re not friends.”

“- for no longer being the love interest of Shawn Mendes, uh, the Sony Crusader.” Niall easily removes Zayn’s hand from Mendes’ neck, either because Zayn was too shook to hold on as tight or those golfing practices finally paid off, Louis can’t tell. 

“You had your time to squalor in stolen Walkmans and cassette recorders -”

“I’m a police detective.” 

“- but you’ve had your time.” Niall faces Mendes, “And it’s my turn now -”

“Absolutely not,” Payne cuts in, easily tearing Niall away from the criminal, “I am still your commanding officer and boss, and as long as I am such, you will not be lollygagging with any criminal _especially_ the Sony Crusader.”

“You know I’m so happy you guys started using my alias,” Mendes shakes his head in amusement as if nothing in the last five minutes had happened.

“Enough.” Payne butts in, “give us proof you are in danger or I will keep you in custody for Captain Austin.”

Mendes goes quiet and steps closer to Payne, “You mean you’ll turn me into the same man who I’m terrified of? The man who is the reason why I requested help from the pigs I’ve been running away from since I was young?”

Payne seems speechless, as does the rest of the Nine-Nine, “I...don’t understand.”

“No, you can’t possibly understand can you?” Mendes’ eyes still look grave although his lips curl in sad amusement, “You can’t fathom how one of you could be both a snake and a pig who lives to desecrate and crush young criminals.” 

He steps even closer, coming up nose to nose to the Captain, “I used to be nobody who liked to steal Walkmans for fun until Austin’s men spotted me. They made me do jobs for them that only a skinny, tall white kid could accomplish. And then I found out who I was really working for.”

Zayn butts in, “So Captain Austin is a double timer. Who’s he working for?”

Maybe it’s because everything is happening so fast, but Louis can’t believe that everyone is just accepting what this kid is saying automatically, “Your file says you’re a freelancer who works for anybody. How can we trust you?”

Mendes actually gives him a real smile, even if it contains a smidge of condescension, “Oh Tommo the Tease, who do you think writes your files?” 

The thief lets that sit for a second before he continues, “Austin’s real name is Cowell, Simon Cowell. He controls most of the mobs in the Western hemisphere. And as for the ones he doesn’t control, he’s got a rat in the group. And of course, that includes the mobs that work for the government, the police.”

“Laying it on pretty thick,” Zayn mutters.

“Look, Cowell thought getting you all on the ship would scare me to start working as his protege full time, so he’s not going to interfere while he knows you’re here. In that time, all I’m asking is to get smuggled off.”

Louis narrows his eyes, “And what do we get out of it?”

Mendes puts his hands up, “I’ve got a lot of intel on groups around the world. I’ll talk as long as I get a safe house in the upper east side of Manhattan, get a good spot in the witness protection program -”

Harry holds up a finger while Louis opens his mouth, ready to say fuck no.

“- and a weekly lunch date with my best friend, Tommo the Tease.”

“You want to date him?” Harry shouts indignantly.

Well, that kind of hurts, Louis thinks he’s a good catch. Maybe not as good as a house in the upper east side, but he tries not to skip leg day.

“Don’t worry, doll, it’ll just be platonic,” Mendes winks at the curly haired boy, “I just like spending time with my boy.”

Louis doesn’t miss the flinch Harry makes as Mendes refers to him as “his boy”. But what the hell does that mean?

(Niall hangs onto the criminal’s shoulders like a koala, “Hey boo don’t push them together too hard yet, my money is on a week.” 

“Got it sweet thing.”)

**-  
RM 3002  
9:00 pm  
-**

“So what’s the plan?” 

Louis had rigged one of the bedsheets and stuck the pins from the sewing kits in their hotel room to block out all the potential hiding places on the boat they could stick Mendes in, in case his story was really true. He still isn’t positive that they can trust the kid, but the truth he couldn’t shake was that he was just a kid. 

A kid who could change his ways and could definitely be the subject of coercement by a mafia boss. Louis has heard stories like this before. Heck, this country was corrupt, he couldn’t be surprised that the mastermind behind most of the mafias came from within the police force.

Not to mention that after some investigating it turned out that this mysterious Captain Austin or Cowell-whoever came from a precinct from Chicago. Louis fucking hates Chicago. Who puts vegetables on a hot dog?

Harry wanders up beside Louis, a hand coming up to pinch his bottom lip together, making them look like even pinker, “Well, Shawn Mendes said that he’s overheard that Austin is planning on inducting the kid at the gala at the end of the week. So we just have to find a way to sneak him off the boat before Friday.”

Louis flips through Styles' binder excitedly, “That’s perfect! We’re in the middle of the sea except for Thursday. We just all have to wear disguises and get off the port at San Juan without having the Captain notice! Easy peasy!”

**-  
-**

“And how exactly do you suggest we disguise ourselves, not to mention alert no one at the fact that six passengers are getting off at the first stop on a 22-day cruise? And furthermore, how do you suggest we guarantee Mendes goes quietly back to New York?”

Captain Payne definitely does not seem to share Louis’ enthusiasm. Louis wasn’t going to tell the Captain how to do his job, but he definitely wasn’t going to be such a downer if he ever became captain.

Louis couldn’t completely fault the captain for his attitude. The man looked like a lobster, in a sad attempt to blend in with the tanning tourists no doubt.

“We could pretend that we’re a family with a sick teenager!” Harry pipes up, “Louis could probably do it since he’s so short.”

“I’m 5’9”! I’m big, give me a break!” Louis counters. 

It feels great to get angry and loud with Styles again, especially because of his crush and close proximity to the man is making him want to be angry and loud in other ways. He nearly had a heart attack waking up to a half-naked detective. Styles had looked the perfect combination of cute and hot as he rubbed his eyes, causing his towel to slip just the right amount.

Louis breaks out of his Styles-induced stupor at Niall’s voice, “Nah, I have a feeling Zayn would be a better choice. He definitely has that broody teenager vibe going for him.”

Zayn grumbles and rolls his eyes.

“See!” Niall points without looking away from his phone.

“Niall, I respect your opinion,” Harry starts, “but as you are not a detective, I would appreciate silence.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” Niall glares a hole through Harry’s head, “I have never been so disrespected _in my life_. No, you know what? You just lost the only bargaining chip you had in this game, a.k.a. me. Have fun losing, losers.” Niall pauses, “and you know, I never expected a bunch of people who I thought were my friends to view me as such a stupid person. Blah, blah, I’m Niall and all I know is golf. I have feelings and thoughts.”

He points at Louis, “Now watch me walk away.”

Louis looks down, he never gave much thought how Niall thought about being the only civilian in the precinct. They had been friends even before Niall had started working as Captain Payne’s assistant, did Louis treat him so different?

Niall storms back into the room, “I said watch me!”

**-  
Two Hours Later  
-**

Apparently, they are hopeless without Niall because Harry is snapping a pencil in Louis’s face, and this time he doesn’t even know what he did.

More or less, this usually happens during a planning session. But usually, in that case, Harry is accidentally breaking office supplies out of elation from solving something, not from pure frustration. At this point, Captain Payne can’t even be relied on, which just feeds into Louis’ daddy issues that he doesn’t want to focus in on right now. 

It’s not like they’re out of time, though. Louis’s been part of timed missions before, where they needed to find a bomb in five hours. The precinct ended up doing those missions in three or less, yet for a mission with a due date of 36 hours, they were growing antsy. 

This job was Louis’ first love. Being a detective had been a dream job from day one, evidenced heavily by the badge he found in a cereal box, his other true love, that he pinned to his school uniform until it fell off in the dryer and he knows his team feels the same way. He’s not sure why this particular case is driving them into a roadblock, other than the fact that their main criminal wore a badge just like them and could instantly get them all fired.

Luckily, Harry manages to get himself under control enough to stop harming innocent office supplies and heads back to their makeshift map, Louis unconsciously steps closer to him as they stare into the abyss.

He wants to believe that Mendes is telling the truth, even though he knows that’s naive. Everyone knows leopards don’t lose their spots overnight, eventually Mendes will find himself under the clutches of this Cowell, and maybe that time he’ll actually believe the things he says. And Louis will feel bad about sticking his neck out for the kid.

Harry’s breath picks up and Louis can feel it as he tiredly puts his head on his coworker’s shoulder, “Wait...I think I have an idea.”

**-  
-**

For the space of a heartbeat, Mendes stares at the pair with wide eyes.

Louis gives him a cheeky smile and puts his arm around the teen, swiftly avoiding the hand that grabs for his badge. Harry is a few steps behind him, biting his nails in anticipation of Mendes’s response. 

“For this plan to work, we’re gonna need to look like best buddies, right Shawn Mendes?”

Mendes clasps his hands, “It’s going to look really weird if you call your son by his full name, but I’m so here for this! Going on a cruise with my gay dads. Does this mean you guys have touched penises yet?”

“Umm.” Harry intelligently offers.

Louis shakes his head and squeezes the boy’s shoulder in an act he hopes comes off as dad-like, “It’s an act, something you know well Shawn Mendes.”

“Okay.” Mendes smiles, “I accept this plan on one condition. The brunette with the phone has to come along.”

Harry looks over at Louis, clearly trying to say something with his face but ultimately giving him a duck face circa-2014. Asshole still looks cute though.

“Deal,” Louis looks down and sighs. How is this his life? “But I’m warning you, if you try to steal Niall’s phone, he may kill you no matter how cute you may be.”

“Deal!” Mendes shakes his hand, “Aww dad, you think I’m cute?”

**-  
RM 3012  
7:00 am  
-**

“Do you - never mind. We can do this, even without a binder. Come on, Styles!” Harry turns away from Louis to make faces at himself in the mirror, clad only in his towel once again. 

Good news, Louis is going to have some great spank material after this. Bad news, he’s been turning so red Harry has been buying him multiple bottles of sunscreen at the kiosk. Damn his fair skin.

Louis doesn’t see Harry’s mouth twitch as he adjusts himself on the bed, “Do you actually think this is going to work though? I mean projecting an undivided front or whatever mumbo-jumbo you wrote on the board. Is that enough to trick the Captain into thinking nothing is happening while getting Mendes to actually come with us?”

Harry slaps some face cream on his skin, “Well, I mean, we did also offer complete immunity to the teen as long as he goes back to school and graduates.” 

Louis sighs, yeah Payne is definitely going to kill him as soon as he finds that out. 

“Although going back to high school at nineteen might be worse than jail,” Harry continues, “kids can be mean and he would have to repeat freshman year.”

“Really, Harry? You think going to high school is worse than leather daddies at every corner waiting to either beat or sex you up?” Louis props his head up, staring at the way Harry’s muscles move as he applies his face mask.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand, Mr Popular.” Harry rolls his eyes in the mirror, “But I was super gay and also looked like a teenage Snow White back then. I didn’t hit my growth spurt until the last semester of my senior year.”

“Don’t assume things about me, Styles.”

Louis storms into the bathroom and shuts himself inside.

He doesn’t want to think about high school. Yeah, he was definitely Mr Popular for a while until he came out. He was kicked off the soccer team and it even hurt more that it coincided with his step-dad leaving. Even though Mark insisted that it wasn’t partly because of his sexuality, the stares their neighbors gave his family in their backwards town didn’t help any.

**-  
Ten Minutes Later  
-**

Harry is waiting on the bed, mask-less and halfway dressed, when Louis lets himself out, “Bit dramatic, eh?”

“Fuck off,” Louis digs through the closet for his super touristy Hawaiian shirt and visor Mendes and Harry insisted on him getting to blend in, “I guess I’m just nervous.”

Harry is right behind when he gets up, looking like a vision in the mirror of the closet. The man gives a shimmy in the mirror, making the loose fabric he has on shimmer in the mirror, “You shouldn’t have to worry about anything. Before I came into my own at the precinct, you were the detective I looked up to the most. Did you know?”

Louis hopes the fumble he makes at that goes unnoticed as he pulls on his shirt. He never knew Harry had thought of him as anything but annoying and immature. Had he really been acting thick by pushing away his crush this whole time like Niall always said?

“Hey, Louis?” Harry tucks a rebellious curl behind his ear, not noticing when it falls out of line again, “I’ve been thinking about how dangerous this mission is and how if we die our families won’t be able to know what we were even doing on this cruise.”

Louis feels breathless for some reason, “Yeah?”

“And I thought, you know, Louis isn’t a really violent guy and I really need to find one thing out.” Harry bites his lip bashfully, Louis can’t concentrate on anything that isn’t the two of them, “Just. One thing.”

Ever so slowly, Harry leans forward until the two men are breathing in the same air for just a moment before he softly kisses Louis. His lips are so incredibly soft, probably from the weird lip scrub Louis had seen in his bag earlier, and he smells of cucumber. Louis can’t believe this is happening to his ass, who had earlier in the day admitted to Zayn that if there was ever a Doritos body scrub he would actually start using a body scrub.

The two pull apart with a light smack. 

Harry leans back all the way, looking at him warily with big eyes, “...Well?”

“Come over here, Styles.”

**-  
The deck of the Silver Whisper  
2:00 pm  
-**

Louis blinks at the line stretching off the cruise ship to get into the port city, he can only guess how appealing San Juan is in the middle of the summer. He checks the thick coating of sunscreen placed artfully on his nose by yours truly. It was gooey, just thick enough to trick the tourists around him into believing that he is one of them. 

The plan was going perfectly for Oscar Minecraft and his perfect nuclear family, and no, his husband of three years, Herman Honey-Minecraft is not aware of Louis’ dope codenames.

Once they all reach the plank Louis turns to his “family”, putting on the cheesiest smile he can muster without knocking his moustache off. Harry is rocking one of his outrageous Hawaiian shirts buttoned all the way up, paired with Payne’s cork hat and sunglasses. While Mendes has embodied the brooding teenager in a complete goth ensemble. If the studded choker, black kohl, and white chalk-dyed hair isn’t the exact opposite of the puppy personality Mendes is known for, Louis doesn’t know what is.

Niall is somewhere further down in the line where Louis can't see him. He has faith that the brunette will blend in well enough, being a civilian already and all.

Louis can see the supposed Captain Cowell assessing the line as if looking for something, “So, Oscar Jr., are you excited to meet up with your Uncles Steve and Lewis on the island?” Louis is, of course, referring to the super awesome plan Harry and him made up where Payne and Zayn pretended to go scuba diving in order to reach the island beforehand undetected before the mission. Just as an extra precaution if Mendes tried to run. 

“I for one am SUPER excited to find a place to SHIT that will send my logs to somewhere better than the ocean. Love those smelly dad poops.”

He can see the Captain curl his nose in disgust and turn away to walk towards the end of the line. Bulls-eye.

“You’re disgusting.” Harry keeps his arm on Mendes while giving Louis a cute dose of an eye roll. Louis had suggested they get the teenager child leash, but Harry had correctly suggested that would have given them even more attention.

“Yeah,” Louis sighs, “but you love it.”

He knows this is a super important mission, but last night has had him floating on cloud nine.

“Yeah, get some, dad and dad,” Mendes cheers in a way that somehow makes the words coming out less creepy. They’ll have to work on the brooding aspect.

Their walk out of the city is quiet apart from quiet “tourist” conversation in order to put the many potential spies off their trail. Louis tries to fill the air by stating his fake name in the third person before giving an opinion he thinks a Midwestern tourist would say. 

The glare he gets after saying, “Oscar Minecraft definitely loves that exotic awning, reminds me of the war,” makes the walk completely silent other than Mendes’ laughter.

Finally, after thirty minutes of walking, they reach the safehouse where Payne was able to find a guy who lives close enough to a location with a helicopter. 

“You got him?” Zayn sees Harry’s nod and throws down the cuffs, just as planned, startling Mendes.

“What are those for? Tommo I thought we were bros!

Louis scoffs and moves closer, “Sure we got closer, but I still don’t trust you enough that you won’t run off. There’s a reason why you’re the arch nemesis to the best detective in the Nine-Nine. We’re both good at what we do.”

Mendes looks torn between flattered and offended.

“Not so fast,” Harry says before reaching for the cuffs, “After this, I’m going to be the best detective in the Nine-Nine.”

“Really?” Zayn asks incredulously, looking like a poster for smoking, “I would have thought y’all had been able to fuck that rivalry out of each other by now.”

“Oh we did,” Louis smirks, “We really did. But I’m still going to have more arrests than you by the day is through, babe.”

“Okay, so I’ve just realized that I was super into you guys getting it on until I got in the middle of it. I don’t want to have another threesome with a father figure.” Mendes struggles as Harry holds his hands behind his back.

Right at that moment, a man in a black mask barrels into Harry, knocking him out of balance. He has pale white skin and Louis can see a strangely familiar phone case in the man’s back pocket. No, it couldn’t be.

Captain Payne gasps from the doorway of the house, “It’s one of Cowell’s men! They’re trying to take the boy!”

Zayn immediately cocks his gun. 

“Oh my god, it’s just me!” Niall rips off his mask. Louis knew it, he’s probably seen that phone case more than his little brother. 

“Niall, what are you doing?” Louis can’t believe his eyes. “Were you working for Cowell this whole time?”

None of them realize that Shawn Mendes has disappeared.

“What? No. I guess I’m just a ride-and-die kind of guy.”

“I don’t understand,” Harry says slowly, something that Payne aggressively points and nods to.

“You know after I walked out on you all, I realized something,” Niall puts a hand on his bullet-proof vest, “being a civilian fucking sucks. No one at works thinks you have anything important to say -”

“That’s because you work at a police station, Niall,” Louis feels exasperated.

“-so I thought to myself. You know what would be cool? Becoming a criminal!” Niall makes a ta-da gesture with his gloved hands.

“Niall, he’s the Sony Crusader!” Zayn shouts, still suspended on the fire escape.

“But I can change him, Zayn,” Niall looks teary-eyed, “I’m sure after a while he’ll be able to steal Androids and iPhones too!”

“Good lord.” Zayn slips back into the house.

Just at that moment, the sky darkens giving Niall the cover to shoot out a grappling hook of all things above him, as the helicopter Captain Payne was promised by his intel flies over their heads. Of course, driven by Shawn Mendes, the Sony Crusader.

“See you, daddio!” Shawn Mendes yells out of the opening of the helicopter.

“I’m only seven years older than you!” Louis shouts, “It’s important to me that you know that!”

“I can’t hear what you’re saying! But I love you too! And I’m also counting the days until we see each other again!”

**-  
Captain Payne’s Office  
Three Days Later  
-**

“Do you two realize what was done wrong?” Captain Payne steeples his fingers, the bisexual flag waving gently on his desk.

“Uh, yeah! Harry tried to arrest _my_ archnemesis.” Louis crosses his arms.

“ _No_.”

“Um,” Harry mumbles quietly, looking anywhere other than Captain Payne, “we got too passionate for justice?”

Captain Payne pauses for too long, his sunburnt skin putting a damper on the stern look on his face, “You know when you two started sharing a desk I thought the biggest problem we would face was just going to be some lovers squabbles. And although I am absolutely _thrilled_ that my best detectives have finally gotten their heads out of their butts -”

“You can say asses, sir.”

“-I did not foresee one of our most important, secret cases getting jeopardized because of a _game_. We could have easily apprehended Shawn Mendes before Niall had gotten on the scene if the squabble between the two of you did not happen.”

“Sir, it is definitely not a game, we’re not that childish.” Harry gives Louis a warning look before barrelling on, “it’s a prize that I just won.”

“What?!” Louis gapes as Harry tosses a file at him, “Just arrested a bike thief on my way to work. You’re currently dating the best detective in the Nine-Nine.”

A devious smile slowly grows on Louis’ face, “Oh, it’s   
on, Styles.”


End file.
